Referring to the work of the Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz, the French critic Michel Mohrt, a member of the panel of judges the year Gombrowicz''s novel Cosmos was nominated for the prestigious International Prize, states: "I would like to get to know him. There is some sort of secret in the work of this writer." Wilkinson''s study examines the function of philosophy and parody in the novels and pseudo-autobiographical writings, in translation, of Gombrowicz, and also attempts to situate the author within the paradigm of the 20th-century novel. It is intended not as an introduction, but as an analysis and explication to readers already familiar with Gombrowicz''s work.